Scorpius Redeemed

With the winter constellations setting, Orion is disappearing over the western horizon. Appearing on the eastern side is one of the most prominent summer constellations, his mortal enemy Scorpius. I shared one story of Orion and Scorpius in an earlier post (http://miskwaadesi.blogspot.com/2013/03/meet-orion.html), but it turns out that Scorpius isn't necessarily the bad guy he's painted to be in that story.

Scorpius is one of the twelve zodiac constellations. Scorpios are born in late October and November, when the sun is shining through the constellation (which is why you can't see a zodiac constellation in the night sky during its reigning month). Scorpios are said to have some similar qualities to scorpions,  namely that they can be fairly reclusive, but also passionate and emotional. The sign of Scorpio is correlated with the time that farmers are putting their crops into storage (after weighing and distributing the grains in October, under Libra, the scales). The dark cellars, silos and barns are the ideal habitat of a scorpion.

In fact, on very clear nights, you can see that Scorpio appears to be crawling out of a dark spot in the Milky Way. Some believed that this dark spot was actually a portal to the Underworld, from which the scorpions emerged.

It is easy to see this reclusive, vermin-like creature that lives in dark holes and crevices as a villain, and the Orion story we tell children in the star lab perpetuates that image. However, other versions of the story paint Orion as the true villain, a boastful hunter, famous for bragging that he would one day kill every creature on the Earth. Hera, watching Orion from Mount Olympus, was a fan of neither his boasting nor his claims, and so sent Scorpius on a mission to humble him. While Scorpius did manage to sting the hunter, he was mortally wounded by Orion's club in doing so. Hera placed the scorpion in the stars in honor of his service to the gods of Mount Olympus and as a reminder of the cost of being too boastful.

An addendum to the story brings a few more constellations into the plot. Ophiucus, the great physician, apparently brought Orion back to life with a scorpion antidote, which is why the doctor is seen standing above the scorpion as it sets in the west, simultaneous with Orion's recovery and reappearance in the east. Zeus, disapproving of Ophiucus' interference with the work of the gods, sent Aquila the eagle with a lightning bolt to kill the physician. Look to see the eagle, poised in a threatening posture above Ophiucus, as the physician disappears below the horizon, mortally wounded.

Depending on how the story is told, Scorpius is either the hero or the villain. Either way, the constellation will be appearing low on the horizon as the night continue to get warmer.

Tour de Raptor

Last weekend, four wildlife-focused naturalists hopped into a minivan with Erin, our onsite animal care coordinator, for a whirlwind weekend tour of different places in Minnesota that use live animals (specifically raptors) for environmental education purposes. Here's a super-brief summary of our four stops:

Lake Superior Zoo: Duluth, MN

An Eastern screech owl, one of the Lake Superior Zoo's education animals

The Lake Superior Zoo is a relatively small zoo that recently re-obtained its AZA accreditation  a testament to the dedication of the current staff to providing top-notch care for their animals, educational programming to the public, and commitment to conservation work and research. In addition to the usual crew of zoo charismatic megafauna (including bears, lynx, tigers, and lions), the zoo has a number of education animals. The three educators on staff teach programs on-site and also travel off-site for various outreach programs. The education animals include trained birds: an Eastern screech owl, a peregrine falcon, a red-tailed hawk, and five different parrots. In addition to the birds, the educators will use live mammalian, reptilian, and amphibian ambassadors, with education animals ranging from snakes to rabbits. While the zoo-keepers maintain clean enclosures and provide daily diet, the training of the animals for educational programs is a responsibility that falls strictly to the education staff.

The Raptor Center: St. Paul, MN

Pi, an immature bald eagle on the Raptor Center's education team

I visited the raptor center for three days in November, so I already had a pretty good idea of what their operation looks like. The raptor center includes both an education department and a rehabilitation center. The education department houses more than 40 captive raptors (all permanently disabled - Wolf Ridge's three captive raptors came from the Raptor Center) and has "cornered the market for Twin Cities metropolitan area off-site raptor education programs." During our visit, we took a quick tour, chatted with Mike, the on-site caretaker for the morning, and sat in on a birthday party raptor program for a three-year old.

Mike teaches a group of very small children and their parents about great horned owls.

The Raptor Center operates in a similar way to Wolf Ridge in the care and management of the raptors, but it's interesting to observe because they are caring for 40+ birds compared to our three. It's a large-scale operation that relies on great organization and communication amongst the five education staff members, as well as more than 60 weekly volunteers.

Minnesota Zoo: Apple Valley, MN

So, first of all, I have to brag about the fact that I got to go to the zoo for free (usually $18 for adults). We made sure to walk around the various exhibits and Erin reminisced about her former days as an intern on the tropics trail. However, the purpose of our trip was to see the World of Birds Show, which started with a backstage tour with the head bird trainer, Dave. This was the last weekend of their "winter show" (indoor venue). Behind the main stage was where about 20 education birds were kept. The zoo does two or three shows a day, utilizing about ten birds per show, so each show has a varying cast of characters to prevent from overworking the birds. The zoo uses a wide variety of birds for the show, including owls, hawks, parrots, macaws, cockatoos, and toucans.

A World of Birds Show toucan.

A World of Birds Show snowy owl.

Watching the show itself was a really interesting experience. The zoo takes a vastly different approach to live animal education than Wolf Ridge. While we spend a good deal of time talking about each bird, expecting our students to sit quietly and listen, the zoo's program was fast-paced and chaotic, introducing ten different birds in just under a half-hour. Dave said that their main goal is not passing knowledge onto the audience, but rather creating an experience full of "wow" moments that will stick in the minds and memories of kids and adults alike. They are trying to create awareness and stewardship by tugging at the heart-strings of their audience (ultimately, that is what we are trying to do as well, but in a different setting and a different way). Due to the chaotic nature of the audience, the birds have to be incredibly well-trained - I was totally impressed by the behavior of these birds. Part of the difference here is that many of their birds were born in captivity, whereas our birds are wild birds with permanent disabilities. This was probably the highlight of the weekend for me, to see a place that has the exact same goals as us in mind with regards to live animal education, but accomplishes it in such a vastly different (and, admittedly, much showier) way.

Dave introduces the crowd to Coconut, a somewhat famous sulfur-crested cockatoo. You can see the stage they use - the bird show is like a theatrical performance, complete with light cues, videos, and timed bird entrances and exits.

The Eurasian eagle owl is the largest species of owl in the world (this is a male - the females are even bigger).

After the show, Dave let us personally meet one of the stars, a conure parrot.

After the show, Dave gave us a quick tour of their summer-show arena, including some of the summer-show birds hanging out backstage.

This may be the strangest species of bird I have ever seen in my life - it's a vulture species from Africa.

Audubon Center of the North Woods: Sandstone, MN

Of all the places we visited, Audubon was the most similar to Wolf Ridge - a residential environmental learning center in Minnesota. The main difference is that each of the wildlife interns is assigned to one or two of their birds and they are responsible for all of their care and training, whereas at Wolf Ridge, we all work with all of the birds, even though some of us may tend to spend more time working with certain birds (Korppi the raven and Hunter the great horned owl, in my case). The Audubon Center has a barn where all of the animals live, as well as the rock wall. In addition to seven raptors, the center has a raven and a crow. It was great to see them doing enrichment with their birds and compare notes. I also got a ton of new, great ideas to introduce to Korppi in the coming months. The Audubon Center also houses a number of amphibians and reptiles, again giving me lots of ideas for the curriculum I'm currently working on for Wolf Ridge. Lastly, for mammalian representatives, the center has a rabbit and a porcupine. A lot of time was spent comparing the general cuteness between their porcupine, Spike, and ours, Thistle (with the overwhelming opinion that Thistle is cuter, but of course, we are terribly biased).

The resident barred owl at the Audubon Center.

In addition to all of these visits, we had a chance to have dinner with Emily (WR naturalist from last year), eat ice-cream with our recently re-located education director, and spend two lovely evenings with Erin's parents. It was a great weekend both in giving us some new ideas to try at Wolf Ridge, as well as getting me to think more about the bigger picture of my life. I never really took the idea of working at a zoo seriously, for example, but I have an entirely different perspective on what that career might actually look like. Either way, working with our education animals has been totally rewarding and I hope Wolf Ridge isn't the last place that I get to form those kinds of relationships.

Tales from the Trail Cam

At Wolf Ridge, we have a trail-cam, a small camera we can stick in the woods that records photos when motion is detected. A couple weeks ago, it was placed in front of a deer carcass that had been taken in from a nearby road, and we ended up with some pretty incredible photographs.

It's not uncommon to see ravens and bald eagles feeding alongside each other - both are opportunistic scavengers. However, I still found this to be a bit surprising, given my recent knowledge about how ravens will mob predators hanging out near their nests.

Bernd Heinrich also found this to be curious and in Mind of the Raven, he describes how he introduced various non-ravens into the enclosure where he kept four ravens and observed their reactions. For example, when he put a chicken inside, the ravens harassed it at first, pulling at its tail, but quickly lost interest and ended up ignoring the chicken. In contrast, when he put a large, proud rooster inside, the ravens did not torment the bird whatsoever, leading Heinrich to wonder whether they'd already learned to generalize all "chicken-like" creatures or if they were intimidated by the dominant demeanor of the rooster. Heinrich continued to experiment, with a turkey, a dog, etc., ultimately concluding that ravens always attempt to get to know a novel predator in their feeding environment and then engage in one of two reactions: ignoring it or trying to kill it.

In general, ravens seem willing to tolerate dangerous predators if there is food to be had nearby - ravens have been observed feeding beside coyotes in Yellowstone National Park. Sometimes, they even get brave enough to try to dominate a feeding site, or steal food from a larger predator. In this PBS video, a raven pulls at an eagle's tail; the eagle could do some serious damage to the raven with its talons, but they are currently in use holding onto some meat. Eventually, the eagle gives up and lets go, giving the raven its chance to sneak in and grab a snack.

Sometimes, ravens will mess with eagles, seemingly just for the sake of messing around.

Here are some more awesome trail cam photos:

Bloody Beak.

Defensive posture.

"Back off!!"

An immature bald eagle.

Four at once - bald eagle party!

Suddenly...a bobcat appears!

Bobcat checking out the camera.

And a fox.

I Saw a Mobbing in Canada

Last weekend, Jill, Sara, and I took a mini-road-trip up to Thunder Bay in Ontario to spend Easter weekend with Jill's boyfriend, Peter, and some of their awesome Canadian friends. The weather was unbelievably terrible, so most of the weekend was spent indoors watching Game of Thrones, or in various Canadian coffee shops, restaurants, or markets playing cards and hanging out.

This is what a Canadian Easter looks like (photo credit: Sara Sloan)

That's okay, though, because we got a huge dose of nature awesomeness during our drive north. Shortly after crossing the border (I successfully managed not to say anything stupid to the border agent), we noticed what is becoming a very familiar sight this year: a great gray owl perched on the road-side telephone wires. That trip marked my fifth and sixth individual great gray owl sightings of the year! Naturally, we pulled to the side of the road to get a better look ("classic facial discs" -Jill). All of the sudden, two ravens came flying out of nowhere, dive-bombing the formerly peaceful owl. The owl immediately flew to a different perch, but the ravens were persistent, flying at the owl no matter where it flew. Eventually, the owl ended up flying down to the ground under the cover of some trees, and the ravens settled down, but remained perched nearby, seemingly ready to pounce should the owl attempt to relocate again.

As surprising an event as this was to witness, I was even more surprised to discover the birds mobbing owls is a fairly common event. Given that owls regularly eat songbirds, the mobbing is a defense mechanism when an unwanted owl is hanging around. Some researchers have managed to incite mobbing behavior in songbirds by simply playing an owl call in their vicinity. Turns out that corvids (ravens and crows) are both the most common mobbing culprits and also the most vicious; the "guarding" behavior that we observed is normal. This is also why one of the names for these groups of birds is a "murder" of crows and an "unkindness" of ravens.

Mobbing potential owl predators offers three benefits for songbirds. First, it will hopefully result in the removal of a harmful predator. Second, it is a way for parent birds to teach offspring which birds are dangerous predators. Third, if young notice this behavior is happening, it will typically act as a warning sign for them that a predator is nearby and they should take appropriate caution.

When songbirds want to initiate a mob, they will give a distinctive call, which acts as a "call to arms," harkening to the other birds in the area to assist in the mobbing. Birds of all sizes have been observed to participate: an Anna's hummingbirds (4.3 grams) was once observed mobbing a spotted owl (1.3 lbs), a 142-fold difference in size (for a comparison, think of a very small child poking an elephant in the leg with a stick). If owls are being mobbed by "harmless" birds, they will often ignore the event, sometimes even sleepily closing their eyes until eventually the mobbers give up.

In a study by Frederick Gehlbach, 60% of mobbings on screech owls happened during the breeding season. This is the time of year when owls are feeding themselves AND fledglings, so the rate of preying is significantly higher. Also, resident and wintering birds were found to initiate a mobbing more frequently than migrants - an owl is a greater threat to a bird that lives near it permanently than one that is simply passing through.

A couple days ago, I hiked up to Caribou Falls, a short one-mile loop of the Superior Hiking Trail. The ice is finally starting to break up and flowing water is beginning to appear again. While watching the half-frozen water fall, I once again saw some ravens ganging up on a dangerous predator, this time an immature bald eagle. Demonstrating very similar behavior to what I saw in Canada, they continued to launch themselves at the eagle until it eventually flew away.

This is what April in Northern Minnesota looks like. 

March Bird Count

My bird count doubled this month, thanks mostly to a quick weekend trip home to Texas, where spring is in full force (we still have 2+ feet of snow here in Finland, MN). So many great bird songs!

For birders doing a real "big year," if a bird is heard and the song can be correctly identified, it counts as a bird for their list. For me, I'm only counting birds that I visually see. However, bird song can be incredibly helpful in identifying various species, especially in places where I'm somewhat unfamiliar with the common birds, like Murchison, Texas.

3/2/13:
21. Red-breasted Merganser: Temperance River State Park, MN, Lake Superior (I was surprised to see ducks out on Lake Superior this early in the year. They were pretty far out and it took me a good deal of time with my field guide and binocs to identify this partnership).

3/3/13:
22. Herring Gull: Duluth, MN, Harbor Bridge
23. Ring-billed Gull: Duluth, MN, Harbor Bridge

Herring gull (left) and ring-billed gull (right): gulls are one family that I struggle with identification - there are so many different types of gulls that all look so similar! These are the two most common species on Lake Superior - for all I know, there may have been a super rare gull species hanging out on the harbor and I just totally missed it!

24. Mallard Duck: Duluth, MN, Harbor Bridge

25. Common Goldeneye (L?): Two Harbors, MN, Lighthouse Harbor in Lake Superior

3/15/13:

26. Turkey Vulture: Dallas, TX, Circling overhead on the interstate

27. Common Grackle: Athens, TX, Subway parking lot

28. Mourning Dove: Murchison, TX, End of the Pirtle ranch driveway

3/16/13:

29. Northern Cardinal: Murchison, TX, Pirtle ranch, behind tractor shed

 I also saw a ton of cardinals in my parents' back yard the next day.

There were cardinals all over the place in Texas, loudly singing there song for everyone to hear.

30. Tufted Titmouse: Murchison, TX, Pirtle ranch, old poultry yard (This one was loudly singing, and the song sounded an awful lot like a black-crested titmouse - if I hadn't finally spotted it, I would have thought that's what it was. But, alas, no black crest. Also, their range is a little further west than I was...)

31. Eastern Phoebe: Murchison, TX, Pirtle ranch, big tree outside front door (Another "singing" bird, although I don't know if anyone would actually describe the eastern phoebe's song as "singing").

32. Yellow-throated Vireo (L): Murchison, TX, Pirtle ranch, goat yard (I was pretty excited about this one - another bird that took me a long time to identify, mostly because of my serious lack of familiarity with the vireo family).

33. Carolina Chickadee: Murchison, TX, Pirtle ranch, big tree outside front door (These look so much like black-capped chickadees that this was another case where the song helped solidify my otherwise tentative identification).

3/17/13:

34. Carolina Wren (L): Murchison, TX, Pirtle ranch, wood pile by the house (I wish I'd gotten a good picture of this bird - it was beautiful and, being a wren, had a beautiful song as well).

35. Great-tailed Grackle: Dallas, TX, telephone wires downtown

36. Northern Mockingbird: McKinney, TX, Pirtle family backyard

37. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle): McKinney, TX, Pirtle family backyard (First warbler of the year!!)

3/18/13:

38. Red-winged Blackbird: Dallas, TX, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport

3/27/13:

39. Golden Eagle (L): Wolf Ridge, flying over the Science Center (Okay, this was amazing. Betsey and I were walking into the science center when we spotted it. We immediately noticed that it looked the wrong size to be a juvenile bald eagle. We checked my field guide and, sure enough, the color pattern perfectly matched that of a golden eagle. There are many skeptics out there who believe that we saw a juvenile bald eagle, but we got a good enough look to confirm that they are, in actuality, just super jealous).

3/30/13:

40. House Finch: Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, Peter's front yard

41. European Starling: Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, Port Arthur downtown